During campaign development we ran focus groups, co-facilitated by researchers of African and Pakistani heritage, with women of Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, African, and Caribbean heritage. Participants' ideas and reflections were used to develop campaign priorities and creative concepts. Draft plans for the campaign were presented back to the groups for participant-led, iterative development.

Women advised that personal stories of post-menopausal bleeding and womb cancer diagnosis from representative individuals speaking their own languages must be central to the campaign. Involving husbands and children would highlight roles that family members can play in supporting people at risk of womb cancer. Positive messages could address fear, cancer fatalism and concerns about hysterectomy. Our focus group participants also confirmed that often people in their communities think that cervical screening tests for all gynaecological cancers, and so we would need to address this belief too.

Campaign videos therefore utilised semi-structured interviews with Black and South Asian womb cancer survivors and individuals at risk of womb cancer to highlight personal experiences in their own words. An animated video, including characters representative of the diverse Black and South Asian audiences, was also developed to describe the clinical pathway after recognition of symptoms. The animated video also aimed to address misconceptions about womb cancer, including clarifying the definition of menopause, distinguishing womb cancer from cervical cancer, and emphasising the importance of early detection of womb cancer to improve cure rates. The animated video is currently available with both an English and Urdu voiceover, and the video with survivors’ stories is shown in English with Urdu subtitles.

In order to evaluate the videos that were created, the team ran outreach events in collaboration with local organisations and charities that serve Black and Asian communities in Greater Manchester. So far, they have ran 3 in-person events involving 46 individuals aged between 16 and 77 years and of Black African, Pakistani and Kurdish ethnicity.

We hoped that our campaign could rewrite some of the historically fatalistic and confusing narrative surrounding womb cancer. Key messages of the videos included the fact that womb cancer is often curable, especially when detected early, and that cervical cancer screening (“smear”) tests do not check for womb cancer. The videos resulted in event participants feeling more confident about talking with their GP about possible symptoms of womb cancer (72.5% strongly agree), and encouraged individuals to talk to their family about the disease (61.9% strongly agree).

The organisation of the campaign co-creation focus groups was facilitated by Healthy Me Healthy Communities Community Interest Company (CIC) and Fatima Women’s Association. The outreach/ evaluation events were co-hosted by Bollyfit Active CIC, Woman Arise, and Cancer Care Diaspora. These organisations and their trusted leaders helped with recruitment of public contributors and participants from minoritised communities who have historically been left out of research and healthcare engagement work. It is only because of all their contributions to this project that we were able to co-produce this meaningful, unique campaign.

Thank you to Dr Eleanor Richards for bringing me on board with such a rewarding project. This has been a one-of-a-kind opportunity to work so closly with communities to create an animation highlighting survivors stories, and sharing important and life-saving information.
Thank you to the community groups, organisations, researchers and contributors involved in building the narrative and stories, and giving me the rare opportunity to see actual numbers and outcomes of the impact of this project.